语言学名词解释 (2)

1、.1.Descriptive linguisticsDescriptive linguistics describes how a language is actually spoken and/or written, and does not state or prescribe how it ought to be spoken or written.2.BehaviorismA theory of psychology which states that human and animal behavior can and should be studied only in terms o

2、f physical processes, without reference to mind. It led to theories of learning which explained how an external event (a stimulus) caused a change in the behavior of an individual (a response), based on a history of reinforcement. Behaviorism was used by psychologists like Skinner, Osgood, and Staat

3、s to explain first language learning, but these explanations were rejected by adherents of generative grammar and many others.3.Deduction and induction (演绎和归纳) In composition, two ways of presenting an argument are sometimes contrasted: reasoning by deduction and by induction. Reasoning by deduction

4、 proceeds from a generalization to particular facts which support it, whereas reasoning by induction involves moving from particular facts to generalizations about them.4. Linguistic relativity A belief which was held by some scholars that the way people view the world is determined wholly or partia

5、lly by the structure of their native language. As this hypothesis was strongly put forward by the American anthropological linguists Sapir and Whorf, it has othen been called the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis or Whorfian Hypothesis. In recent years, study of the relationships between cognition and linguist

6、ic expression has been revived in a more subtle form within cognitive linguistics. The point of Sapir-Whorfs linguistic relativity is that the categories and distinctions encoded in one language system are unique to that system and incommensurable (不相容) with those of others. Whorf said that the ling

7、uistic system(grammar) is part of the background knowledge of mankind. This background is something that people take for granted and therefore are not conscious of. Only when something abnormal happens can we become aware of the background phenomena. The background linguistic system is not merely a

8、reproducing instrument for voicing ideas but rather is itself the shaper of the ideas, the program and guide for the individuals mental activity (心理活动). The process in which ideas are formed is not an independent one, but is part of a particular grammar and differs between different grammars to vary

9、ing degrees. Instead of using languages to represent what is already given in nature, everyone dissects (切分) the natural world and organizes events according to the framework provided by his native language. Only a common agreement (共同认可) enables speakers of a language to dissect and organize the na

10、tural world in a particular way. Without this kind of agreement, human beings cannot talk and understand each other.Linguistic relativity derives from Saussures theory of the arbitrary nature of the sign, meaning that a signifier bears no logical or intrinsic relationship to its signified, and that

11、the signifieds themselves are arbitrary. But the general fact about human languages is that not only is a language free to choose signifiers, it can also make arbitrary selections of signifieds.Whorf claimed that the perceptual events (感知事件) that people experience can be very different from those ex

12、perienced by speakers of other languages standing beside us. For example, when people look at the rainbow, most English speakers see red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. But Whorf said that the color people perceive comes from the color naming influence of the language. Some languages do not

13、 divide the colors into the same number of basic categories. One language may not distinguish between green and blue, and the speakers of that language will not describe the rainbow in the same way the English speakers do.5.Linguistic Determinism The point of Sapir-Whorfs linguistic determinism is t

14、hat ones thinking is completely determined by his native language because one can only perceive the world in terms of the categories and distinctions encoded in the language. Sapir said that human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor do they live alone in the world of social activity

15、 as ordinarily understood. Instead, they are greatly influenced by the particular language serving as the medium of expression for their society. The “real world” is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group (群体的语言习惯). No two languages are so similar as to represen

16、t the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached. Language not only refers to experience acquired independently of language. It actually defines our experience. Whorf presented his evidence mainly fr

17、om his comparisons between the Hopi language and English. He argued that in English and other European languages words are divided into two major categories: nouns and verbs. This distinction may lead speakers of English to assume that the world is also divided into two categories: actions and objec

18、ts. For example, time is a continuum, but speakers of English regard it as something divisible and countable. Thus they have the concepts of “two days” or “three months”. But in Hopi, words are not divided the same way as in English. Instead of saying “four days”. They say “dayness (白昼) the fourth t

19、ime or “the fourth dayness”. And instead of saying “Ten days is greater than nine days, they say “The tenth day is later than the ninth”.6.Positivism (实证主义) a philosophical movement that began in the early 19th century, characterized by an emphasis on the scientific method as the only source of know

20、ledge and a desire to rebuild society on the basis of “positive” knowledge. As a variation of empiricism, among the basic ideas of positivism are the idea that the world is orderly, that all natural phenomena have natural causes, and that nothing is self-evident, but the laws of nature can be discov

21、ered through experimentation. Although few people nowadays subscribe to all of these beliefs, some degree of positivism characterizes most “scientific” approaches to understanding all phenomena, including language learning. Logical positivism is a specific type of positivism that rejects as meaningl

22、ess all statements that cannot be empirically verified.7.Morpheme (语素) the smallest meaningful unit in a language. A morpheme cannot be divided without altering or destroying its meaning. For example, the English word “kind” is a morpheme. If the d is removed, it changes to kin which has a different

23、 meaning. Some words consist of one morpheme, e.g. kind, others of more than one. For example, the English word “unkindness” consists of three morphemes: the stem kind, the negative prefix un-, and the noun-forming suffix ness. Morpheme can have grammatical functions. For example, in English the s i

24、n she talks is a grammatical morpheme which shows that the verb is the third-person singular present-tense form.8.Discourse analysis (话语分析) the study of how sentences in spoken and written language form larger meaningful units such as paragraphs, conversations, interviews, etc. For example, discours

25、e analysis deals with:How the choice of articles, pronouns, and tenses affects the structure of the discourse;The relationship between utterances in a discourse;The Moves made by speakers to introduce a new topic, change the topic, or assert a higher Role Relationship to the other participants.Analy

26、sis of spoken discourse is sometimes called Coversational Analysis. Some linguists use the term Text Linguistics for the study of written discourse.9.Mentalismthe theory that a human being possesses a mind which has consciousness, ideas, etc., and that the mind can influence the behavior of the body

27、.10.Semiology/Semiotics1) the theory of signs. 2) the analysis of systems using signs or signals for the purpose of communication (semiotic systems). The most important semiotic system is human language, but there are other systems, e.g. sign language, traffic signals.(Saussures Legacy: Semiology (符

28、号学)Saussure is also the father of semiology. Semiology is based on the assumptions that insofar as (就而言) human actions convey meaning, insofar as they function as signs, there must be an underlyingg system of conventions and distinctions which make this meaning possible. Where there are signs there

29、are systems. This is what various signifying activities have in common, and if one is to determine their essential nature, one must treat them not in isolation but as examples of semiological systems. In this way, aspects which are often hidden or neglected will become apparent, especially when non-

30、linguistic signifying practices are considered as “language”.Linguistics may serve as a model for semiology because in the case of language the arbitrary and conventional nature of the sign is especially clear. Non-linguistic signs may often seem natural to those who use them, and it mey require som

31、e effort to see that the politeness or impoliteness of an action is not a necessary and intrinsic property of that action but a conventional meaning.Saussures theory of semiology had profound influences, for he not only opened up a new discipline, but also founded a methodology (方法论) applicable to m

32、any social sciences. A young science as semiology is, it has proved that the relation between the signifier and the signified exist in numerous phenomena, and that the underlying system that gives special values to social semiotics (符号学/论) is worth studying. It is now realized that many daily happen

33、ings that have been taken for granted are governed by underlying customs, institutions, and social values. ) 11.Empiricism an approach to psychology which states that the development of theory must be related to observable facts and expeiments (see Behaviorism), or which states that all human knowle

34、dge comes from experience. Empiricism contrasts with the view that many forms of human knowledge are in-born or innate (see Innatist hypothesis).12.(The structuralists follow empiricism in philosophy and behaviorism in psychology. Chomsky follows rationalism in philosophy and mentalism in psychology

35、.)1.Synchronic and diachronic linguisticsDiachronic linguistics is an approach to linguistics which studies how a language changes over a period of time, for exmple the change in the sound system of English from Early English to Modern English.Diachronic linguistics has been contrasted with synchron

36、ic linguistics which is the study of a language system at one particular point in time, for example the sound system of Modern British English.The need for diachronic and synchronic descriptions to be kept apart was emphasized by the swiss linguist Saussure.2.Innateness hypothesis (天赋假说)Also innatis

37、t position, innatist hypothesis, nativist position, innateness position, rationalist positiona theory held by some philosophers and linguists which says that human knowledge develops from structures, processes, and “ideas” which are in the mind at birth (i.e. are innate), rather than from the enviro

38、nment, and that there are responsible for the basic structure of language and how it is learned. This hypothesis has been used to explain how children are able to learn language. The innatist hypothesis contrasts with the belief that all human knowledge comes from experience.3.Transformational-gener

39、ative GrammarAlso transformational grammar, TG grammar, generative-transformational grammar, generative transformational theoryA theory of grammar which was proposed by the American linguist Chomsky in 1957. It has since been developed by him and many other linguists. Chomsky attempted to provide a

40、model for the description of all languages. A transformational generative grammar tries to show, with a system of rules, the knowledge which a native speaker of a language uses in forming grammatical sentences.Chomsky has changed his theory over the years. The most well-known version was published i

41、n his book Aspects of the Theory of Syntax in 1965. It is often referred to as the Aspects Model or Standard Theory. This model consists of four main parts:1） the base component, which produces or generates basic syntactic structures called deep structures; 2) the transformational component, which c

42、hanges or transforms these basic structures into sentences called surface structures; 3) the phonological component, which gives sentences a phonetic representation so that they can be pronounced; 4) the semantic component, which deals with the meaning of sentences.4.Firths system and structureFollo

43、wing Saussure, Firth held that language consists of two elements: system and structure. While structure is the syntagmatic ordering of elements, system is a set of paradigmatic units, each of which can be substituted by others in certain places. Thus, structure is horizontal and system is longitudin

44、al.SYSSTRUC TURETEMOn the grammatical level, some sentences are the same. For example: John helped Mary. John met Mary. John greeted Mary. John liked Mary.All these sentences have the “Subject + Verb + Object” structure, where “helped”, “met”, “greeted”, and “liked” are elements of a system of verbs. On the phonological level, for example, the ordering of “pit”, “bed”, “file”, and “vase” are C1 V C2(consonant/vowel), which is structure, and there are three different systems at the same time: (1)/p/, /b/, /f/, /v/; (2) /i/. /e/, /ai/; (3